Large corporate or enterprise networks typically require significant resources to deploy and maintain. To lessen the burden of supporting countless users, network administrators often mandate computer hardware, software, and network configuration choices based on a user's needs for access to a local or wide area network, such as a corporate intra-net or the Internet, respectively. Once a computer is configured in accordance with the corporate standard, any changes made by the user to connect to a different (foreign) network, such as may be available while traveling, at a remote corporate site, or at home, may result in his inability to reconnect to the network(s) upon returning to his normal (sometimes referred to as “home”) location absent additional administrator intervention.
Widespread deployment of high-speed access technologies has reduced associated costs such that many users have high-speed access to their Network Service Provider (NSP) or Network Access Provider (NAP) from their residences. While high-speed residential access is becoming increasingly more affordable, an incentive remains to share the access among two or more computers, such as a desktop which may belong to the user and a laptop which is often owned by her employer. To establish a connection to the NSP, the user's computing device (desktop, laptop, PDA, etc.) must be appropriately configured. For most users, this task requires additional support from the NSP via telephone in the best case scenario or via an on-site visit for many provisioning tasks which may include hardware installation (cable modem, ISDN modem, NIC, etc.) in addition to application and communication parameter configuration (IP address, gateway, subnet mask, DNS, proxy selections).
Configuration issues present a formidable challenge for truly mobile computing. Wireless modems and cellular telephones are now capable of establishing a network connection within a particular service area. Typically, a user establishes a connection using a remote-access server communicating via point-to-point protocol (PPP) to avoid some of the configuration issues described above. However, this type of connection provides only limited access and functionality. As computing devices become smaller and more powerful, and wireless technologies support increasingly greater bandwidth, traveling “power users” will demand a seamless connection from network to network as they traverse a variety of disparate networks or access areas. User intervention for configuration changes is simply not an acceptable alternative.
A number of strategies have been utilized to reduce the time and effort required for provisioning and/or configuration to connect a new or returning user to a particular network. Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP) was developed to allow network administrators to assign TCP/IP configuration parameters to various client computers on their networks. However, some of the functional characteristics of DHCP are not well suited for deploying residential or mobile network access. In particular, DHCP must be selected in the user's configuration to automatically obtain various communication parameters from an appropriate DHCP server. As such, this solution is not viable for any users configured with a static IP address.
In addition to communication parameters which may be set by a DHCP server if appropriately configured, the widespread use of the Internet and world wide web present additional challenges in terms of application configuration settings. For example, many browser applications may be configured to use proxy services for one or more protocols, including HTTP, FTP, Socks, etc. These proxy services are often used in enterprise networks to provide caching and additional security to users. However, the proxy settings must be manually reconfigured by the user to accommodate connection to a foreign network.
One approach to automating application settings uses a strategy similar to a DHCP server. A provisioning server on the foreign network may be used to communicate appropriate proxy settings to a new user using another application program, applet, or script, such as a Java script. However, this approach may require the user (or user's application) to actively request reconfiguration from the provisioning server, i.e. manual intervention from the user. In addition, the applet downloaded from the provisioning server modifies the user's settings which may prevent the user from using that browser on the enterprise network without additional manual intervention and proxy configuration changes.